


the things she noticed

by soafterr



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Book/Movie 2: Catching Fire, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene, Pre-Book/Movie 2: Catching Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24830584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soafterr/pseuds/soafterr
Summary: “You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”missing scenes from catching fire.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 137





	the things she noticed

  1. **You’re a painter**



Looking up from where I sit in the garden, I notice Peeta’s eyes flicker between his sketchpad and myself.

“Are you drawing me?”

The gentle breeze from the rooftop causes the many wind chimes to jingle, but I know he’s heard me from the slight smirk he tries to hide behind his pad.

“Peeta!” I scold. I’ve barely moved a muscle before he asks me to stay still.

“I’m almost done, I promise.”

I try to go back to tying knots out of the hanging vines but I feel his eyes on me and find it distracting. Its only a few minutes later when he sets his pencil down and moves to sit next to me.

“May I see it?” I ask. He nods and passes the sketch my way.

As I suspected, it is the scene that lay before him: myself in the garden, basking in the sun and toying with the vines. The small furrow of my eyebrows depicts my mild annoyance with a particularly difficult knot. I look beautiful, delicate in a way I’ll never be. I look tranquil like I’ve never remembered feeling in my whole life.

“I’m sorry I don’t have my paints. If you could see it in color…”

He trails off and I almost ask to hear the end of that sentence that was surely meant to end flatteringly. Instead I tell him it is perfect the way it is.

Peeta rips the page from the book and hands it to me. “Yours,” he says.

For a brief moment, I hope this drawing finds it’s way back to him when this mess is all over. It will be a good memento for Peeta to hold on to when I am dead.

  1. **You’re a baker**



I’ve started entering Victor’s Village through the back gate and sneaking into my home from the side door just to avoid running into Peeta.

With the Games over and the last of the cameras gone, any façade of even a friendship between us has vanished as well. I can’t say I don’t deserve it. The last semblance of whatever existed between us is the constant supply of baked goods he regularly delivers. Albeit, seemingly always when I’m out of the house.

I’m just passing under the kitchen window when I hear Prim say his name.

“--Gobbled the last of them up! I’m certain they’re her new favorite, Peeta.”

I freeze in my steps at the sound of his warm, low chuckle. I haven’t heard the sound in so long.

“Now _that_ I’d like to see!”

They share a laugh together and I’m burning with curiosity. I enter through the side door, Peeta’s back to me.

“What’s so funny?” I mean to sound teasing, but it comes out somewhat accusatory. I wince when I noticed Peeta’s back muscles stiffen at the sound of my voice.

Prim, apparently unaware of the shift in the room, giggles, “I was just telling Peeta about how much you liked the cheese buns he brought over yesterday. I barely saw them before you got to them!”

Peeta finally turns around. His smile fades to nothing as meets my eyes briefly and looks away, clearing his throat. “I best be…”

“Right.” I answer for him, internally cringing at the awkwardness.

Peeta shoots Prim a sincere smile and I feel the strangest pang of jealousy as he walks away. I throw my hunting bag on the table and sink into a chair, lost in a hopeless feeling that Peeta and I will never be friends again after what I’ve done to him.

But the next day when Prim skips in the kitchen with a basket, I don’t have to check to know it’s a dozen homemade cheese buns.

  1. **You like to sleep with the windows open**



We don’t bother with any pretense of sleeping in our separate beds anymore. Without question, Peeta and I enter my room every night for sleep. Halfway through the tour, Effie gives up on lecturing us.

District Four is no more enjoyable than any other stop on this tour. Peeta watched the boy tribute die in front of him and my stunt with the tracker jacker nest took out the girl. When we’re done reading from Effie’s cards, cameras follow us around as the Star-Crossed Lovers share a romantic walk on the beach.

It’s a relief when we can finally stop pretending and I lead Peeta into my bed. Curled around him, I think about the occasional rocking of the train and the ceaseless rocking of the ocean we saw for the first time today.

Without a word, I get up from where we lay and move to the window. I want to smell the saltwater in the air one last time.

“It doesn’t open.”

I turn around back to Peeta. He lies on his back, one arm tucked under his head as a pillow, head turned my way.

Of course they don’t.

Finishing my thought, Peeta adds, “Wouldn’t want a runaway tribute.”

I crawl back into bed and place my head over his heart. This tour is killing us. All at once I feel overwhelmingly tired. I have no eagerness to see what nightmares await me tonight.

“Back home I always like to sleep with the windows open. It’s very stuffy over the bakery, made a lot worse when you share a room with two brothers...”

He goes on further, and I wonder why he is so talkative tonight, until he starts describing the smells and sounds of District 12 at night. Slowly, I drift off.

  1. **You never take sugar in your tea**



I reach for the remote and hear a groan from Haymitch, sitting across the coffee table from me in a lavish, Capitol, came-with-the-house chair.

“Television? Again? You know it’s not mandatory today, right?”

I shoot him a glare, but otherwise ignore him. I’ve been on bed rest for my foot for only a few days, but I everyday I sift through hours of the propaganda on an endless loop, looking for that mockingjay. I feel foolish doing it, but I have to know if Bonnie and Twill were right.

I rest on the sofa with my feet in Peeta’s lap. He doesn’t mind, and sometimes he gently massages my ankle.

During a news segment on Capitol fashion trends, my mother comes in with tea for everyone. I reach for a cup absentmindedly and recoil at the taste.

“That’s Peeta’s, dear,” my mother chides. She turns her attention to him, “No sugar, correct?”

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Everdeen.” Peeta takes the cup from my hands and Mother replaces it with my cup. Two sugars. I was usually forced to drink it plain growing up but indulging in a little sweetener is one of the few Capitol luxuries I allow myself since the Games.

I watch Peeta take a sip of his drink, relaxed and content. I must have a strange look on my face, judgment or disbelief maybe, because I catch his eye and he begins chuckling.

“It’s not that bad, Katniss. Sugar was too precious in my home. I like it better this way.”

I set my cup down and go back to searching the news program, but in my stomach I feel a twinge of guilt. I shouldn’t treat myself when so many go without.

  1. **You always double knot your shoelaces**



“Okay, give me another,” Peeta demands.

My eyes just about roll into the back of my head. With Peeta’s insistence on sobriety and all the work he’s putting us through, I expect Haymitch’s body to go into shock if he runs another mile.

“Peeta, the last time he ran this much was when Ripper caught him siphoning off her still. Give him a break.”

“No one will give him a break in the Arena. Another. Both of you.”

“Hey, I lapped Haymitch twice! I’ve done enough running for today. Why don’t we practice something useful today? What good is running if I have Brutus from Two on top of me?”

Haymitch nods his head, hunched over with his hands on his knees while he catches his breath like he couldn’t catch up to me or Peeta.

“Brutus can’t get on top of you if you can out-run him.” Peeta says evenly, like he’s trying to keep from shouting. “We’ll work on hand-to hand combat next, but first more laps.”

I’m about to argue more when Peeta gets down on one knee to tie his shoelaces. It’s funny; I watch the way he ties them, which is different than my father taught me, and the way does it twice.

After a moment Peeta struggles to get back up with his leg, but refuses my help when I offer it. “You can’t always help me in the Arena, Katniss,” He states matter-of-factly.

But he doesn’t know yet that that’s my whole mission.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic ive published in like 6 years. I started writing it years ago and recently added on to it. Hopefully I've improved a little since my last publication, some of my older stuff makes me cringe from the sap and spelling mistakes (but I refuse to take them down on principle). 
> 
> Special thanks to the tumblrers: everlarkslut, hanginghope, and lovely-tothe-bone, who each assured me it was okay that the first memory was not in chronological order with the rest of the piece (which still bothers me but w/e) AND thanks to tumblrer ghtlovesthg for the line about "Ripper caught him siphoning off her still" way back in like 2015 when i first started writing this!
> 
> follow me on tumblr @ soafteritellhimreal


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